Patti Smith show at Hotel Chelsea may be out of tune for residents facing eviction

By Gatecrasher

|NEW YORK DAILY NEWS|

Jan 11, 2012 | 6:00 AM

The Hotel Chelsea has sent out invitations to residents for a Patti Smith performance. (Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Patti Smith is returning to the Hotel Chelsea on Thursday — and some embattled residents of the fabled address are accusing her of selling out.

Over the last couple of days, hotel sources tell us that all the Chelsea's residents — including more than 30 in the process of being evicted by the hotel's new owner, Joseph Chetrit , have received an invitation to a "private performance" by Smith and her bandmates Lenny Kaye and Tony Shanahan in the hotel's ground-floor ballroom.

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The tastefully printed invitation says "admission is reserved exclusively for tenants of Hotel Chelsea," but some of those residents question the management's motives for holding the concert, and Smith's for performing.

"As a Patti Smith fan, I'm disappointed that she would support the developers who are destroying the Chelsea Hotel for future generations," says Ed Hamilton , a resident since 1995 and the author of "Legends of the Chelsea Hotel: Living With Artists and Outlaws in New York's Rebel Mecca."

"Will a nice, stirring rendition of 'People Have the Power' make the tenants feel better about the ongoing destruction of the hotel and the eviction of permanent residents? I seriously doubt it."

Hamilton posted the invite on his "Living With Legends" blog (chelseahotelblog.com) on Tuesday, noting that Smith has twice lived at the Chelsea: in the '60s when she was a poor, unknown poet living with the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe, and in the late '90s, after the death of her husband, former MC5 guitarist Fred (Sonic) Smith.

Hamilton calls on Smith to cancel the concert, writing that "if she hasn't been in some way deceived, we know there's no way in hell Patti would give a concert in support of" an owner trying to evict more than 30 residents.

Another writer living in the building, "New York City Gangland" author Arthur Nash , says he suspects the concert is a "PR stunt designed to insinuate" that the new owner and management are "loyal to the Chelsea's bohemian roots.

The concert also has fueled speculation that Smith is advising the hotel's new management company, King & Grove, on the Chelsea's next phase.

According to Nash, a handwritten sign has been affixed to the second-floor room that Smith occupied in the '60s. It reads, in part, "Do not touch anything," which could suggest her former abode will become a museum piece at the new Chelsea.

Nash says the tiny room was used to store rubble soon after Smith toured it last year while promoting her best-selling memoir, "Just Kids," which is partially set at the Chelsea. "Since then," he tells us, "it's apparently been cleared of debris — all 200 square feet of it."

Smith did not respond to requests for comment by deadline. A spokeswoman for Chetrit declined to comment.